Truth behind annual US terror alert: anonymous e-mail & innocent NRI

On the same day, 39-year-old Mohammed Moizuddin set out from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for his annual Ramzan visit to see his family in Hyderabad. An employee of a software concern in Jeddah, the visit home is like an annual ritual he undertakes to spend the holy month with his family.

But little did Moizuddin know that by the time he reached Hyderabad, an untraced e-mail would make him the ‘‘chief financer’’ and ‘‘master planner’’ of the kind of terror attacks the US alert talked about. Alarm bells had rung in Washington which informed its mission here to take up the matter with Indian authorities.

‘‘This has been a very traumatic experience for us and I am hoping this will end soon,’’ says Moizuddin when The Sunday Express tracks him down in his house tucked away in a quiet bylane of Hyderabad’s Humayun Nagar.

This is not the first time that Moizuddin suddenly finds himself under the security scanner. Last Ramzan, another such untraced e-mail to Indian agencies landed him in trouble. It alleged a plot by Moizuddin to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

He was traced in Hyderabad, questioned by agencies and an inquiry found him clean. The US had approached Indian authorities then too with a threat similar to the one issued this time but New Delhi had already investigated the matter so it did not get much attention.

The e-mail sent this time recalls that the plan last October to hurt US interests in India was aborted because the plot was exposed. But it claims that Moizuddin is making a determined attempt this time. It goes on to mention that arms and explosives have already been transported and are in the custody of his wife Alka Begum.

Moizuddin and the investigations have an answer to this. Each time he leaves Saudi Arabia, a former business partner with whom Moizuddin fell out sends such e-mails to get him in trouble. The police, in fact, is now confident that the US suspicion is misplaced.

‘‘I have been informing the Hyderabad police about every visit of mine ever since I was investigated during an earlier visit,’’ a shaken and anguished Moizuddin says at his residence as his children and cousins crowd around him.

He is aware that the recent US security alert to its citizens visiting India is constructed around him but adds that he has not seen the mails labelling him a terrorist.

‘‘I cannot speak about it since the matter is under investigation. The facts of my case are known to the police… in any case, the police has already said that the US alert is based on an unreliable source,’’ says Moizuddin.

A science graduate from Osmania University, Moizuddin went to Saudi Arabia over a decade ago to support his joint family. He is stunned at being labelled a terrorist and his ray of hope is the police. The Andhra Pradesh police have investigated Moizuddin’s antecedents and are convinced that this alert has emerged from an ‘‘undependable’’ source.

‘‘We have thoroughly examined him and nothing suspicious could be established. It is the result of differences between two people. We are quite confident,’’ says AP Director General of Police Swaranjit Sen.

‘‘Insha Allah, this time there will be an end to this,’’ says Moizuddin as he walks back into his house.